A modest proposal why the Corsair loadout needs to change.

[Max_Caine]

This is going to be an annoying set of posts. Mostly because I'm going to use visual aids to help my presentation, which means multiple posts on the same topic, so if you don't fancy sitting through it, here's the TL;DR: Corsairs would be better with 4 light missiles than 2 cannons. Okay, that's out of the way, let's crack on!

There is nothing fundamentally wrong with the Corsair. It's faster, has a longer range, more HP and a tighter turn circle than the Foxtrot or the Condor. A Corsair can outfly a Corvette or a Landingship. With the afterburners on, you can fly a ring around either cap ship and attack the vulnerable behind. Condors and Foxtrots can't do this (although Foxtrots don't need to). You always need two Condors verses any cap ship - one to kite, one to fight. A Heavy fighter's missile will destroy a Condor in one hit but a Corsair can take a lickin' and still keep kickin'. And yet why is the Corsair consistently passed over for the Maurader? Previously it was because the Corsair was difficult to manufacture. This barrier to entry has been dropped significantly, however the Condor and the Foxtrot are still preferred aircraft to the Corsair. Not because of the manufacture cost (although this is a factor) but because of the loadout.

Let's consider the Corsair's loadout. Two cannons. Sounds sexy, eh? Let's see the Corsair in action, verses a Scout.

[video=youtube;AUhWcntaInc]

VF-1 Valkyrie my entire ass

Edited March 28, 2014 by Max_Caine

[Max_Caine]

Well, that was disappointing. My brand-new Corsair can't shoot down a Scout. At least a Condor can't do any better, eh?

[video=youtube;1kU9I8uaagQ]

Oh.

Edited March 28, 2014 by Max_Caine

[Max_Caine]

Let's be fair. The Condor suffered more damage relative to the Corsair. But that doesn't address a fundamental problem, a problem which has dogged the Corsair since its inception - the loadout. The problem with two cannons are that they don't do as much damage as the missile/cannon layout of the Condor. Further exasperating this problem is the speed at which missiles upgrade relative to cannons. As plasma weapons have to be synched to progression in Ground Combat, they are much harder to attain than plasma missiles. My Corsair will still have two laser gats while my Condors and Foxtrots are flying around with plasma missiles. This makes my earlier craft more effective than my Corsair, and doesn't encourage me to upgrade. Not when a Condor can take out advanced interceptors:

[video=youtube;ApKeAukRwhM]

Boom. Headshot.

Edited March 28, 2014 by Max_Caine

[Max_Caine]

While the Corsair can, it puts itself at more danger than the Condor does.

[video=youtube;NqjlYuHYUQU]

Too close for missles, I'm switching to guns.

Edited March 28, 2014 by Max_Caine

[Max_Caine]

The Maurader turns up when you have both plasma gatlings and plasma missiles. It's tougher and better than the Corsair, and it can carry heavy missiles. So the Corsair looses out because thanks to its' loadout, it's actually better to wait for the Maurauder. I believe with a single change this can be turned around. I had previously suggested up-gunning the Corsairs' cannon. Ha! I feel like an idiot now. You don't need to up-gun it. All you need to do is a reverse Foxtrot. Take away the cannons, and give it four light missiles. Like so:

[video=youtube;_z6MyyouQ_g]

Not so tough now, huh, buddy!

Edited March 28, 2014 by Max_Caine

[Max_Caine]

And verses a Heavy Fighter, it's as good as a Condor. (Which it should be, don't you think?)

[video=youtube;ojnTz-oZtMc]

You're all clear, kid. Now let's blow this thing and go home!

Edited March 28, 2014 by Max_Caine

[Max_Caine]

Now, those with long memories might say that 4 light missiles are OP just as the Foxtrot was (still is?) OP. Not so! 4 light missiles actually brings the Corsair up to the level of the Foxtrot in damage potential. Here's the Foxtrot.

[video=youtube;C6-u4nDY_OY]

Goldhawk plz nerf

Edited March 28, 2014 by Max_Caine

[Max_Caine]

And here's the Corsair to compare.

[video=youtube;dRxU7l-5TLw]

I'll hit the brakes, he'll fly right by.

Edited March 28, 2014 by Max_Caine

[Max_Caine]

As you can see, the Corsair and the Foxtrot do similar levels of damage but the Corsair has to work much harder than the Foxtrot to get a clean shot. Which is okay because the Corsair can go that bit further. Additionally, replacing the cannons with missiles would make a new and interesting dynamic for the Corsair. They can only handle 1 interceptor, and if they want to assist another aircraft, they have to come at the alien inteceptor from an angle, or the interceptor can and will dodge their last missile. Here's an example of a melee featuring a foxtrot, condor and missile corsair

[video=youtube;js7Nspsp-Ts]

Roger. Maverick has the ball.

Once the Corsair had killed one Heavy Fighter, that was it. All the Corsair could do then was dodge missiles and draw fire which allowed the Condor to take out the Heavy Fighter. This acts as a brake on the Corsair being OP, because of the way missiles work.

So, in conclusion, I don't believe that cannons work for the Corsair and actually detract from the aircraft. Replacing the loadout with 4 light missiles will make the Corsair far more competitve with the Foxtrot and the Condor and not push the Corsair out sight when the Maurauder becomes available.

Edited March 28, 2014 by Max_Caine

[Arghy]

To me air combat in general is really weak and not rewarding at all, for instance no matter how good you do with a condor you can only ever kill 1 target. You should be able to carry enough weapons to kill 2 scouts on 1 condor but your not going to be able to do that unless you do so manually and intelligently. Aircraft should be glass cannons with great killing power but low durability.

A condor should be able to carry 4 light missiles and have its guns as well as a center line external fuel pod that allows it to get to the target but it drops it in combat. You should be able to replace missiles with fuel pods to extend its range/combat time or gun pods. Guns should be extremely efficient since their at such a disadvantage so you could theoretically put 2 gun pods, 3 fuel tanks on your condor and micro it enough to shoot down 3 scouts if your good.

Air combat should be this crazy unbalanced thing, you and the aliens should have a chance of wiping the floor with the opponent or totally getting owned by smaller numbers. Instead current air combat is me looking at the UFO's size and speed then assigning the right amount of aircraft and auto resolving the fight for guaranteed victory every single time.

[kabill]

Can't really quarrel with this whole argument (and the videos are great. Not sure why, but the anticlimactic end of the first one was hilarious).

This said, I'm uncertain about the four light missiles. Game balance wise, I totally agree with the point made. But I'm wondering whether it won't make the aircraft cannons pretty pointless in the mid-late game since you won't have any aircraft that use them. Although I suppose aircraft cannons could remain the key way of keeping Condors in the game longer if you don't want to/can't afford to upgrade to Corsairs, maybe?

(Another thought: multiple light missiles wastes a lot of the Corsair's durability since you tend to take hits when trying to fight with cannons more than anything. Not really a massive issue, though).

[Kirill Selivanov]

Even battleship is a question of 6x plasma missles (3 foxtrots)

May be it would be a good idea to implement grouping ufo? big+two scouts? or its to big time to develop - maps redesign and else...

The idea of many wings in fight is intresting too... but heavy.

I agree that maybe its better to do something with fuel-pods. When 90% hunts result in "fuel is off"... bye-bye, so even doesn't come to drop rockets its makes all fight useless (and intrest to autofight). But there are so much potential in that air fights! i am loving it

[quiescat]

my only worry with giving it 4 light missiles, this is a non-issue worry for me at least. that this change is just making the corsair a foxtrot that can roll. this is not a bad thing i feel. while light missiles have lower range they still have the killing power to let me phase out foxtrots, if i wanted to.

given the lore of the corsair is to make it a companion to the foxtrot not a replacement i think there might be an issue of design behind this. i think the useless nature of the corsair as of right now, might let this be a worth while fix as it does not require any hard changes. the fact that if i am not mistaken on the global map foxs and corsairs have the same speed so both get out run by carriers and battle ships some what, so you still have reasons to make the marauder which will still be king as it should be.

( full on theory crafting here on)

so with the change you have going i see my self sitting on 3-4 bases with 2 foxtrots each by the time i unlock the corsair. so with there price tag i might see it as worth once there unlocked to instead of just using 6 foxtrots per base to go ahead with doing a system of 2 foxs and 2 corsairs. i say this because the corsairs now can do the work of a foxtrot and still keep the killing power to deal with escorts. where as right now i deal with most escorts by sending 3 foxtrots when i only really need 2, just so i can deal with the fighters.

[lemm]

But guns are more fun

[MrPyro]

I have bothered to build Corsairs in my current playthrough, although only one per base. I find them excellent for

1) Alien air superiority missions

2) Sending along with a pair of Foxtrots vs escorted heavier ships (corvette to cruiser)

I was a little disappointed when I had the same result as video 1 vs the scout; on the flip side I also thought it was great when my lone Corsair was hit by 3 standard alien fighters and destroyed all 3 with zero damage taken.

I haven't got as far as the aliens launching Interceptors yet in my current game; if they can take on Interceptors on a roughly 1:1 basis then I'll probably be happy with them as pure dogfighting craft.

[Gauddlike]

Isn't adding fuel drop pods the same as just adding 10% or whatever to the current fuel except more complicated?

I think the original suggestion has merit I just haven't used any of the aircraft enough to be able to offer real alternatives.

I wouldn't mind being able to set combat fuel use and afterburner multiplier individually for aircraft though.

The Corsair could be able to use it's afterburner much more in combat to make the most use of those cannon without affecting the other craft or making it too fast on the geoscape.

Turn it into a small fast and agile interceptor that can fly rings round enemy interceptors and take them out while the Marauder is the big heavy hitter.

[Arghy]

Isn't adding fuel drop pods the same as just adding 10% or whatever to the current fuel except more complicated?

I think the original suggestion has merit I just haven't used any of the aircraft enough to be able to offer real alternatives.

I wouldn't mind being able to set combat fuel use and afterburner multiplier individually for aircraft though.

The Corsair could be able to use it's afterburner much more in combat to make the most use of those cannon without affecting the other craft or making it too fast on the geoscape.

Turn it into a small fast and agile interceptor that can fly rings round enemy interceptors and take them out while the Marauder is the big heavy hitter.

It would be around 20-30% more range per fuel pod, the point would be to allow your interceptors to stay up longer at the cost of ordinance. If you increased their weapon loadout you can also have short ranged interceptors that had more weapons to do more damage and long range ones that were purely there to intercept a weak target and fly home. You'd drop them in combat so you would have more fuel to fight with but you'd have to return to your base when your done.

As it is now your pretty much never going to intercept and shoot down 2 UFO's, if there was more pylons and fuel pods then you could not only intercept and shoot down multiple UFO's you'd have the increased fuel to do this. Its actually very unrealistic to increase the F16's range without external fuel pods--you'd have to design a completely new aircraft to jam more fuel tanks in there. It would be so much more better to add the pylon system and have the generic condor being a souped up F16 with 3 fuel pods and 2 missiles.

I've always hated how everyone copied the extremely simple upgrade system from Xcom, why must it be so simple? Why cant you have interesting balance like giving the mig31 back its cannon and 6 hard points? You can have tactically diverse and interesting aircraft instead of just having a generic fighter and a bomber. I know its not easy to balance these things but the game is in beta right now and its a perfect time to try and fine tune it with the standard being a fall back if it doesnt work or proves to hard.

Give the condor its 5 pylons, sure you could mount 5 missiles but it would have horrid fuel range and open up a system for short range powerful interceptors or extremely long range flexible interceptors with the same plane. You wont need to have 1 plane for 1 job, every plane can be kitted out to do a wide range of jobs except some will be better then others. The mig31 for example normally carries 2 ASM's(anti ship missiles), 2 fuel pods and 2 short range A2A missiles as well as its standard cannon. Adding more weapons doesn't make it OP and completely impossible to balance, its still never going to be as nimble as the condor.

Air combat would be so refreshing if you really thought it all out before just clicking the standard planes and auto resolving it. You could tweak the UFO's in response so every time you had an air engagement you'd actually want to manually do it to get the most out of it rather then hitting auto resolve and forgetting about an entire portion of the game.

[Gauddlike]

Having a useful auto resolve means that it will always be possible to ignore that portion of the game.

Adding several more hardpoints to aircraft and all the rest of the things you want would just mean more numbers for the auto resolve to crunch before you clicked the button.

There would be nothing refreshing to me about having to micro manage my aircraft loadout for each enemy craft in a wave.

It would be busy work just to get the biggest win number on the auto resolve.

Fuel pods in exchange for reduced weaponry has been discussed many times but I still fail to see the usefulness of it.

I cannot see any situation where I would ever send a weakened interceptor after any alien craft that had been balanced against a fully loaded one.

With fuel pods you would never intercept and shoot down two UFOs either because you wouldn't have the firepower to do it.

I disagree that now is the perfect time to make sweeping changes to the air combat system, or any system.

The game is still in beta but it is right at the end of beta.

This is the time to make subtle adjustments to bring the current systems into line and polish them up before release.

This is definitely drifting off topic though as it has little bearing on the OP suggestions.

[dpelectric]

Well, hmmm, I just put considerable resources into building a pair of Corsairs, only to see this post question their utility and now witness Marauders become available only a short time later.

A newbie question if I could- sorry OP- what are Marauders supposed to replace? The Corsairs are billed as the upgrade to Condors, but what is the primary role of Marauders? Vs heavy fighters? Vs capital ships? I'm totally confused about how to structure my fleets and can't afford to build/keep everything...Condors? Corsairs? Foxtrots? Marauders? Arrrgh...

[Max_Caine]

Marauders are supposed to be the "Top Dog" aircraft. Kind of like the Avenger. They supplant everything else, because they can do it so much better. Except the Fury, but that's an "I win" aircraft.

[Dranak]

Marauders beat everything. Take a Foxtrot, teach its pilot to roll, add a cannon, and give it way more speed and toughness and you have a Marauder.

This is really interesting Max. Currently Corsairs finally have a unique role, but that role is of questionable value. This would slightly weaken them at the thing they're supposed to be best at now, while making them more globally useful. An interesting proposition indeed.

[Belmakor]

Could you do another video with the Corsair using 2 cannons (with 1/2 - 3/4 ammo in each) and two light missile slots?

That would be my preference. Its still an upgrade on the Condor and sufficiently different from Maruader and Foxtor to be interesting and niche fulfilling.

[Benscachar]

If nothing else it is indisputably idiotic that the Corsair should only have two weapons while the craft it replaces has more.

[Benscachar]

Either that or the cannons should be considerably buffed.

[StellarRat]

But the two weapons it has a guaranteed fighter killers. You can't dodge cannon shells in this game. Alien fighters can always dodge one missile.